


Orison

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s11e07 Plush, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5268089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam tries to grasp it, the scope of Cas’ faith in him, vast and incomprehensible just like the rest of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orison

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece: [x](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5268104)

By the time they get back to the bunker, it’s well into the early hours of the morning. Sam is exhausted -- not just from the hunt, but also from his conversation with Dean, from the effort of fighting against Dean’s doubt in addition to his own.

He’s ready to fall straight into bed without even bothering to pause to get down onto his knees, to lace his fingers together and try to convince himself there’s someone holding his hand. To try and convince himself this isn’t just his own desperate attempt to feel that he isn’t alone. That there’s some point to his visions, his pain, his life -- to all of it.

When he gets to his room, though, he finds Cas still there, propped up against the headboard, legs stretched out on top of the blankets, smiling at whatever he’s watching on TV. He starts getting up when Sam comes in, pushes himself up a little as though preparing to stand.

“Sam,” Cas says, by way of greeting. He gives Sam a once-over and something in his gaze shifts. He looks guilty, suddenly, to have been found occupying Sam’s bed at three in the morning. “I’m sorry. I know it’s late. I’ll leave so you can sleep.”

Sam drops his bag on the floor, rubbing his shoulder where the strap has been digging into his skin. He’s about to mutter his thanks, but it gets caught on the tip of his tongue. “Actually,” he says. “Uh. Can we talk for a bit?”

Cas looks momentarily surprised before his features smooth over and his expression shifts back to a smile, warm and pleased. “Of course,” Cas says, turning off the TV and sliding over to make room for Sam on the bed.

Sam goes to sit next to Cas, propping himself up against the headboard, and while he formulates what he wants to say, Cas sits quietly, hands folded in his lap. He likes that about Cas, that these pauses aren’t awkward and uncomfortable to him in the way they are to other people. That he can take as long as he needs and Cas isn’t going to rush him or get impatient.

He knows Cas will understand whatever he decides to say, but he can’t quite work out how to articulate the big things: the constant exhaustion that comes from the aching loneliness, the desperate faith, the act of always reaching for a God he isn’t sure is even there. Eventually, he decides to start simple. He clears his throat and says, “Dean caught me praying.” It sounds embarrassingly like a confession.

Cas picks up on it, of course. Sam is looking down at his hands in his lap, palms flat on his thighs rather than folded together, but out of the corner of his eye he can see Cas furrow his brow, tilt his head.

Cas considers Sam for a moment before he says, “You say that like you’re ashamed.”

Sam breathes a humorless laugh that ends in a grimace. “You said it yourself,” he says. “We shouldn’t count on God for help. But I keep having these visions, and they have to come from somewhere, you know? And I guess thinking they come from God feels like a way better option than the alternatives.” It’s a lot to dump on Cas, he knows, and he feels guilty about it right up until the moment Cas speaks.

“Visions?” Cas asks, and Sam is absurdly grateful that there’s no skepticism in his tone, only curiosity and concern. Of course he would take something like this in stride. “Of what?”

“Some are...memories, I guess,” Sam says. “Things I must have forgotten about my time in the cage. But others are...different. Visions of the cage from the outside looking in. Like it’s something someone else is seeing. Like it’s something that could be happening right now. And I know it’s stupid, but I want to see them as a sign. Or at least as a clue I can use, like I’m working a case. Not just my past coming back to haunt me.”

“You shouldn’t feel stupid for having faith in spite of everything, Sam,” Cas says, serious and earnest in that way he has. “That’s the whole point, after all. It isn’t a sign of weakness to hold onto that even in the absence of miracles. Even when your prayers aren’t being answered. It isn’t something to be ashamed of.” Cas doesn’t believe in God any more, Sam knows, but the surety with which he speaks of Sam leaves no room for doubt. Sam is overwhelmed by the force of it.

In the silence that follows, Cas shifts where he’s sitting, hesitating before he speaks again. When he does, it sounds like he’s making his own confession. “I prayed, too, when I was human. When it was quiet and I didn’t know what else to do.”

Sam is embarrassed to admit he had never considered that. He’s gotten so used to Cas being an angel, to having a constant mental connection to heaven, that he never wondered what it might be like to suddenly be cut off from that after millions of years of existence. To be truly alone for the first time in his life. He can’t even really comprehend the scope of what that sort of abandonment must have felt like. There’s a long pause while he contemplates it. He manages to say, past the lump in his throat, “What did you pray for?” Even though he suspects he already knows.

Cas shrugs, but the gesture is a forced kind of casual. “For the first time in my life,” he says, “I wasn’t sure anyone was listening. But I was lost. Afraid. So I prayed for much the same as what you’ve been praying for, I imagine. For help. For answers.”

“Did it work?” Sam asks, though he suspects he knows the answer to that, too.

Cas smiles wryly, and that tells all Sam he needs to know. “In a manner of speaking,” Cas says.

He doesn’t elaborate any further, so Sam doesn’t ask. Instead, he says, “That’s all it took, though.” At Cas’ quizzical look, he adds, “It only took one round of unanswered prayers for you to take a hint. And here I am, decades later, still clinging to the hope that there’s some greater good out there. Still hoping I can be saved. That we can _all_ be saved.”

“Sam,” Cas says, shoulders sagging, his expression pained and sad. “My cynicism is nothing to aspire to. On the contrary, it’s your faith that’s something to be admired.”

Sam’s jaw works as he tries and fails to formulate a “thank you” powerful enough to convey his gratitude, to match Cas’ sincerity. Instead, all he can manage is a nod as he clenches his hands in his jeans.

“Do you think…” he starts, then has to stop to take a breath before going on. “I know you’re not real fond of God right now. But do you think anyone is listening?”

“I don’t know,” Cas says, honestly. He must notice the way Sam sags in disappointment, because he adds, “I’d like to think that there is. There’s always reason for hope, Sam. If nothing else, I do believe that.”

“But what if there isn’t?” Sam can’t help but ask. “What if no one is listening? What if I’m just shouting into the void?”

Cas sits silently, staring at the blank TV screen as he takes the time to contemplate Sam’s question. When he speaks, though, he doesn’t provide Sam with an answer. Instead, he asks, “How does it make you feel? When you pray?”

Sam thinks about it, about all the prayers he’s said over the past few weeks, about how he felt as he was kneeling by the side of his bed like he’d been doing since he was little, always out of sight because he knew the reaction it would garner. Even though he knows it’s probably just the result of his own wishful thinking, when he has his hands clasped and his eyes closed, he swears he can feel...something. In those few moments he’s focused wholeheartedly on his prayer, he’s convinced he can feel something beyond the borders of himself, around him and part of him. Supporting him. It certainly doesn’t feel empty and pointless while he’s doing it.

“Good,” Sam decides, finally, though it’s a massive simplification. Getting that one word out is hard enough, but he forces himself to continue, to justify his own actions. “Just...calm, and peaceful, you know? Even if...even if I’m just imagining it. It still feels like having a conversation with someone who cares. Or I’d like to think it does,” he finishes, lamely.

Cas hums thoughtfully. He says, “You know, a lot of people prayed to saints rather than God. Many still do, in fact. Perhaps you could try praying to one of them. It might help to feel like you have someone on your side.” Cas starts listing off suggestions, ticking them off his fingers one by one. “There’s Saint Hubertus, the patron saint of hunters. Saint Rita, of impossible causes, sickness, and wounds. Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, also of desperate or impossible causes. People pray to them as sort of...intermediaries.”

“Are they more reliable than God?” Sam asks.

Cas laughs, low and a little sad. “I don’t know about reliable,” he admits. “But they were all remarkable. God is often credited with miracles, but during their lifetimes, they performed their own.”

Sam says, meaning it to be a joke, “You saying maybe we can perform a miracle, here?”

Cas seems to actually consider it, though. He says, carefully, “Well, none of them were faced with primordial darkness. But…”

“But?” Sam asks, trying not to get his hopes up. He’s desperate for it, though, for any shred of it, after all the dead ends, the useless research, their powerlessness in the face of the kind of force Sam had been praying for all along. After being faced with his own vast disappointment in gods who are never quite as benevolent as he had wished.

“There’s a passage,” Cas says. “In the Bible. About the darkness.”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I know the one. ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.’ A nice sentiment, but...” He shrugs, not sure what Cas’ point is.

Cas meets Sam’s gaze levelly, a faint smile on his face. “But do you know the verse that comes before that?”

Sam tries to think of it and finds that he can’t. It’s like trying to think of John 3:17. Who bothers to learn what comes before or after the highlights? “No?”

“‘In God was life, and that life was the light of all mankind,’” Cas recites. He smiles at Sam, open and honest. “I may have lost my faith in God, but I haven’t lost my faith in everything. If there’s anyone who can stand against the darkness without being overcome, it’s you, Sam.”

“Cas,” Sam says, past the sudden lump in his throat. “I’m not worthy of--of that--”

“You are,” Cas says, with such certainty that it allows no room for Sam to argue.

They sit in companionable silence, and Sam tries to grasp it, the scope of Cas’ faith in him, vast and incomprehensible just like the rest of him. And yet here he is, sitting next to Sam on his bed, with his clasped hands and soft smile. “Hey Cas,” Sam says, finally, when he works up the nerve. “Will you...will you pray with me?”

“Of course,” Cas says, without hesitation. When Sam reaches for his hand, Cas takes it without hesitation, too, closing his eyes and bowing his head, a small smile on his face.

They sit quietly, fingers laced together, while Sam tries to think of exactly what he wants to say. He’s been asking for a lot of help, lately, but right now, for the first time in a while, he feels a little less hopeless. A little more like someone is on his side, like someone is listening. He’s still scared, but he’s also grateful.

“I don’t know if you’re out there, God,” Sam says, voice low, “or if you’re listening. But if you are, and if this is the help you’re giving me--” he pauses, squeezing Cas’ hand-- “if this is the answer to my prayers. Then thanks.” He takes a deep breath, eyes still closed, and smiles on the exhale. “Amen.”

Cas squeezes his hand in return. When he speaks, Sam can hear the smile in his voice.

“Amen.”


End file.
